\n Miami\u2019s skyline is rapidly changing, with a downtown skyscraper boom that was set in motion a decade ago after the Federal Aviation Authority began approving projects set at a new maximum allowable height of 1,049 feet. But that\u2019s not the only reason the city and its surrounding neighborhoods, long known as a lively metropolis of late nights and ocean views, have become a developer\u2019s playground. Hospitality, automobile and fashion brands \u2014 and confusingly, even Frida Kahlo\u2019s estate<\/a> \u2014 are all vying to build luxurious branded condos and hotels in Miami\u2019s low-tax, little-unionized and business-friendly environment.\n <\/p>\n \n Some other splashy projects include billionaire Ken Griffin\u2019s new global headquarters for the financial firm Citadel Group and Delano Residences, which will offer the Southeast\u2019s first cantilevered observation deck. Just north, in Sunny Isles Beach, Bentley Motors is building<\/a> the tallest oceanfront building in the country, complete with an elevator just for your car. Penthouses are being sold for tens of millions of dollars, reportedly attracting buyers including soccer superstar Lionel Messi<\/a> and self-help guru Tony Robbins. President Trump, too, put forth his possible contribution to the skyline this past March with a rendering of a presidential library-slash-hotel that appeared to be AI-generated<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMiami has been incredibly kind to developers,\u201d said Ryan Shear, a managing partner of PMG, the company behind Waldorf Miami and the Delano. \u201cIt\u2019s a wild west down here, but I love it, I prefer it this way.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think we\u2019re at the tip of the iceberg here,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people with ambition and money and capability that want to put up a lot of real estate.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n After the boom, the bust might be lurking. Last year, the investment bank UBS ranked Miami as the top city globally at risk of a bubble<\/a> \u2014 when value is overinflated, typically leading to a sharp drop or burst to correct course. For now, however, the national and global demand for Miami luxury properties remains high, the UBS report noted, with prices still below New York and Los Angeles. But that, too, is changing fast. For the first time, Miami has become the second-most expensive metropolitan area in the US<\/a>, outranked only by San Francisco.\n <\/p>\n \n The city\u2019s income inequality has also widened, and for Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lejeune, a professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture, the new crop of luxury buildings has become a potent symbol of that growing disparity.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is quite a lot of space available in Miami, without concentrating all the investments in a series of super high buildings, which are literally taking over the skyline,\u201d he said in a phone call. \u201cThey\u2019re an expression of private wealth. Transforming the landscape into an expression of CEO power is not what I was hoping to see develop in the city.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n In the aftermath of COVID-19, the ultrawealthy set their sights on Florida for its laissez-faire attitude. In addition to Griffin\u2019s relocation of the Citadel headquarters from Chicago in 2022, billionaires Howard Schultz, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page have all reportedly put more roots down in the city \u2014 including Zuckerberg\u2019s record-setting island bunker<\/a>. Miami\u2019s former mayor Francis Suarez courted cryptocurrency firms and took his pay in Bitcoin, and the city was dubbed \u201cWall Street South<\/a>\u201d for its fast-growing sector of hedge funds and private equity firms. In November, the state will vote on whether to reduce property taxes through an amendment that critics have warned<\/a> could gut local budgets.\n <\/p>\n \n But the southward wealth migration had already been set in motion, with Florida quadrupling its millionaires<\/a> between 2010 to 2022. New York\u2019s number of millionaires doubled but overall its share compared to other states in the country plummeted, trailing behind Texas, Florida and California, according to the financial think tank Citizens Budget Commission.\n <\/p>\n \n Florida\u2019s low taxes and virtually no unionized construction labor may be an attractive duo for luxury buyers and builders \u2014 but reports<\/a> have raised alarm bells over low wages and dangerous working conditions, and basic heat safety has become political fodder.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n The rivalry between New York and Florida \u2014 and California and Florida, too \u2014 has also become heated as the wealthy have publicly criticized blue states and announced their decisions to relocate. New York City\u2019s election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor has only supercharged the state\u2019s naysayers, including a public feud by Mamdani and Griffin<\/a> over taxing the rich. Still, Miami developers rely on New York comparisons, promoting the city as the \u201csixth borough\u201d and the Waldorf Miami as the \u201ctallest residential building south of New York.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n They are often the same firms benefitting from the competition, as New York, too, climbs higher and skinnier<\/a> in a crowded skyline. PMG, for example, where Shear is principal, is also behind Manhattan\u2019s Steinway Tower on Billionaire\u2019s Row. The company is poised to become the leading developer of US supertalls after the 985-foot Delano breaks ground.\n <\/p>\n \n Though the wave of luxury supertalls has critics in the north too, Lejeune says that New York is \u201cbig enough to absorb\u201d the new projects within its existing skyline of varied architectural styles.\n <\/p>\n \n But with how quickly Miami is building, he\u2019s wary of the number of \u201cglass box\u201d structures whose only aims are to climb high, and fast, he said, \u201cit\u2019s kind of Dubai-like.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n What makes Miami\u2019s skyline distinct is still forming in real time. The city and nearby Miami Beach are both known for its airy and colorful Mediterranean Revival styles, Caribbean influence and tropical take on Art Deco, but skyscrapers do not have a long history within the city.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat makes a Miami building different from a New York building? Let\u2019s begin with the most fundamental thing: We like terraces here,\u201d said Bernardo Fort Brescia, founding principal of Arquitectonica, the firm behind Cipriani Residences. \u201cThe building aesthetic is not a glass box, it\u2019s a layering of balconies of terraces.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The city\u2019s skyscraper projects have increasingly functioned as vertical country clubs, Fort Brescia pointed out. Amenities combine flashy fitness, wellness, leisure and community spaces. Vertiginous penthouses can offer their own outdoor perks.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThese penthouses can have backyards \u2014 they can have a swimming pool, they can have a garden. Why would I need that in New York? I\u2019d be freezing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Fort Brescia began his architecture career in Miami in the mid-1970s as the city positioned itself as a connector to Latin America and lured financial firms to its sunny shores. He has been behind a number of its important architectural projects since, such as Brickell City Centre, which mixes housing, office space, dining and retail. One of Miami\u2019s major advantages has been this integrated spirit, he said, reflected in its mixed-use zoning laws rather than having a business district that clears out after hours.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGenerally those districts were where you could hear a pin drop at night or the weekend because it was all office buildings,\u201d he said. The city\u2019s mayor at the time, Maurice Ferr\u00e9, had a different vision. \u201cHis thinking was we need to create a complete city, like all European cities, where people lived, worked, everything in one place.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe streets are lively and filled with people till late \u2014 now, the Latin culture helps. Dinner is pretty late,\u201d he added, laughing. \u201cBut having said that, it is the mix that really makes (Brickell) quite different than other neighborhoods in America.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n As many US cities have struggled with empty office buildings post-pandemic, Miami has bucked the trend with the low vacancies and strong sales, the Miami Herald reported earlier this year<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is like the model of what cities should be, except that we started 40 years ago,\u201d Fort Brescia said. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to do it overnight.\u201d\n <\/p>\n Sinking land and rising tides<\/p>\n \n Despite the enthusiasm for building Miami higher, the question remains whether the city can quite literally support it. A University of Miami study in 2024 found that dozens of oceanfront buildings<\/a>, including major branded luxury condos and hotels, are sinking by as much as three inches between Miami Beach and Golden Beach further north. Research began following the tragic partial collapse of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, which saw its somber 5-year anniversary in late June, though federal investigators recently attributed the collapse<\/a> to structural design issues and alterations.\n <\/p>\n \n Land subsidence isn\u2019t the only threat. With sea levels rising, the combination could mean more devastating floods along the coastal stretch that\u2019s at the center of luxury development. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and spin up faster, too, having a more damaging effect. Though South Florida abides by strict statewide building codes to protect against wind and flooding, Lejeune is concerned that no new construction has been tested by destructive storms. The last major hurricane to hit Miami-Dade County was the catastrophic Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but the city did not take a direct hit.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHopefully we trust the engineers, but we do not have real tests \u2014 not even of the buildings that have less floors \u2014 with a real hurricane since their construction,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Day to day, as the city grows, there\u2019s also the question of traffic, which snarls the city as public transit initiatives have repeatedly struggled. A $866 million bridge project aiming to provide some relief is years behind schedule, further exacerbating the congestion. Whether the city can support its growth is \u201ca very good question that has been repeated for almost 30 years now,\u201d Lejeune said, though he doubts that the super-rich buyers purchasing 80th-floor penthouses will be commuting on the highway. Though they might in the future travel by sky, instead, as Governor DeSantis has invested in vertiports<\/a> for flying taxis, and future properties such as Anantara Miami and the The Residences at Shell Bay plan to build helipads, like the existing one at the skyscraper One Thousand Museum.\n <\/p>\n \n If Miami\u2019s newest wealthy residents live in their properties or not, Lejeune just hopes they will have to pay higher taxes on them.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe want to attract these types of people, and we\u2019re not even going to make money out of them?\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s really strange to me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than two months, Cipriani Residences has held the title of Miami\u2019s tallest building. The three-tower luxury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-347045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2283488659.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Cipriani](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/cipriani-dji-20260416113933-0036-d-lr-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"PMG,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/pmg-delano-05-aerial-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/pmg-delano-03-observation-birdseyeview-01-copy.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Like](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/int29-canaletto-living-terrace-e4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Supertalls](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/pmg-delano-r1-living.jpg\")
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